Throwing Granny under the bus, from James Taranto, Wall Street Jourmal [1]:
President Obama is pulling out the big guns and pointing them straight at your grandmother. “Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3” absent an agreement with Congress to raise the debt ceiling, CBS News reports:
“I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.
At a press conference [2] yesterday, Obama demanded that Republicans not only authorize trillions of dollars in new borrowing,which at this point seems unavoidable, but agree to what he called “massive, job-killing tax increases” effective in 2013–i.e., after what he expects will be his re-election.
Lack of funds would not the the issue, from James Pethokoukis, Reuters: [3]
Here’s a great chart from Goldman Sachs that shows how government revenues and obligations will likely match up in August:
As is clearly shown, there is enough cumulative money coming to pay interest, SS, Medicare and defense. Not that there wouldn’t be cash managements issues
If Dumbo chooses not to pay Granny, he had better hope she dies before the next election.
[4]Jenifer Rubin
The McConnell Plan, I don’t pretend to understand it. However Jennifer Rubin has the details and appears to like it, from Washington Post [5]:
What does this do? It shifts the onus to the president to put up the cuts he wants. Moreover, it puts the Senate Democrats in a tough bind. Do they vote against this if there is no grand bargain, filibustering a mechanism that would avoid default? Having failed to present their own budget, Senate Democrats are now on the spot. As for that White House meeting today, I imagine the White House will be none to pleased. Put up or shut up, they are being told. That might not sit well when the modus operandi has been to offer virtually no immediate cuts in private and spout platitudes (peas!) in public
In poker, it might be called put up or shut up.
Is Mediscare a scam, from Professor William A. Jacobson,Legal Insurrection [6]:
Obama throws Democrats’ Mediscare campaign off a cliff
Almost the entire Democratic Party theme for the 2012 elections at every level is that evil Republicans want to destroy “Medicare as we know it,” whereas Democrats want to save the program by raising taxes on the “rich.”
[…]
So, according to Obama, the Democratic plan to save Medicare will not work no matter how much taxes are raised. That is a message which will resonate.
Democrats are the party of Medicare failure. Just ask Obama.
Not to say that Barack Obama, a noted moron, is actually right. However, either Dumbo or the Mediscare faction of the democrat party is wrong.
Just how dumb is Dumbo? Here is number Four, follow the link for the rest, from Human Events [7]:
4. Look at the map: Not only does Obama not know how many states there are, he also doesn’t know where they are. During the 2008 primary campaign, he explained why he was trailing Hillary Clinton in Kentucky: “Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it’s not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle.” Obama’s home state of Illinois, and not Arkansas, shares a border with Kentucky.
[8]Hat tip: Syllable Soup
FLOTUS discovers she is fat, from Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times [9]:
Mrs. Obama in Better Homes and Gardens: “Ironically, her always-booked life has made it harder to follow her own advice about staying on the move. “I became more sedentary,” she admits. After her first year at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, she was surprised that her body had changed. “I realized that some clothes were getting tighter,” she says. “I didn’t know what was going on.” She has increased her time at the gym, and now banters with her husband–“I always tease him I’m in better shape than he is.” She laughs. “I can do longer workouts. He’s the President.” Their physically active lifestyle is also an implicit signal to their daughters. “Ultimately kids emulate what they see. You don’t have to make a lecture if you’re living it. We don’t talk about working out, we just do.”
As for me, I suspect Moocelle it is too few work outs and too many burgers [10].